Have you never noticed that all the really good sites you 'find' have been because someone posted the link? For example in a comment on HN, or reddit. Or a related link on Wikipedia or the sidebar of a subreddit?

You have a point there.The digital equivalent of 'word of mouth' being the best form of marketing ?

That to an extent, and also the fact that _real_ artificial intelligence - the kind that you could share exactly where you're up to with programming and it could tell you exactly what site to read next - that doesn't exist yet.

I once read that Google indexes 0.5% of everything publicly known.

That figure (0.5%) would suggest to me like theres a lot more room for disruption.

Yup. Google are doing everything they can to ensure their future. They know this.

Once I found very nice forum about linux servers. I found it thanks to my friend saying I have to check it out. After spending some time there this forum started to showing up on first page of google every time I looked some solution for my server problem. Google is closing your in your own bubble. It will present to you websites that you already know or that are related to sites that you know.

> Google is closing you in your own bubble. It will present to you websites that you already know or that are related to sites that you know.

This is a good explanation for why my friends search results are very different from mine. Google would spin this as individualization. Is there any way to get around this bubble and unearth fresh results each search ??

Have you tried incognito mode? I also recall there was option to turn off customizing search results (or something similar) in google's privacy settings.

EDIT: I did not notice any differences so I don't really know how to test it. I search highly technical stuff for work or very mundane "popular" things outside of it. Seems like I'm bad target for the customization.

As far as I know, Google isn't very accurate with Chinese content.